Lamar W. Hankins : 'Masters of War' Target Syria

"Masters of War." Art from Society of Wood Engravers.

U.S. foreign policy:
The 'Masters of War'
are firmly in control

Diplomacy and fairly negotiated economic agreements have taken a back seat to violent military action as the primary way to deal with the world.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / September 5, 2013

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
-- Bob Dylan, from "Masters of War"

The news this past week seems to confirm that “Masters of War,” the phrase from Bob Dylan’s 1963 song of that title, are firmly in control of U.S. foreign policy. Diplomacy and fairly negotiated economic agreements have taken a back seat to violent military action as the primary way to deal with the world.

At the age of 22, Dylan understood U.S. foreign policy more clearly than most politicians in my lifetime. I am not suggesting with regard to attacking Syria, for instance, that there are not some people genuinely concerned about the welfare of the Syrian people, who were likely gassed recently by President Assad. But I consider most of their comments hollow, hiding motives other than the humanitarian ones they espouse.

Sen. John McCain, for example, says,

For us to sit by, and watch these people being massacred, raped, tortured in the most terrible fashion, meanwhile, the Russians are all in, Hezbollah is all in, and we’re talking about giving them more light weapons? It’s insane.

John McCain has never seen a conflict that couldn’t be improved with a little war-making. He’s been a friend of the “Masters of War” his entire career, and has been richly rewarded. McCain is so pro-war that he made a trip to Syria last May and wound up having a photo-op with terrorists who were involved in a high-profile kidnapping case. The terrorists’ virtue was that they opposed Assad.

President Barack Obama is hardly any better than McCain:

It's important for us to recognize that when over 1,000 people are killed, including hundreds of innocent children, through the use of a weapon that 98 or 99 percent of humanity says should not be used even in war, and there is no action, then we're sending a signal that that international norm doesn't mean much. And that is a danger to our national security.

Obama apparently opposed the Iraq war 10 years ago against just as brutal a dictator as Assad and one who killed more people with chemical weapons than has Assad. Of course, some of Saddam’s gassings were done with U.S. approval and aid, when Iraq was fighting against Iran, our long-time enemy that does not bend to our will. And the U.S. gave Saddam a pass for killing between 3,000 and 5,000 Kurds in Halabja in 1988.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments on the subject are even more jingoistic than McCain’s and Obama’s:

Our sense of basic humanity is offended, not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up. What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons, is a moral obscenity. By any standards, it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.

These words come from an anti-Vietnam War veteran who nevertheless had few problems with agreeing to invade Iraq in 2003, making his talk of morality unpersuasive. War itself should be enough to shock the conscience, especially of someone who has participated in it.

Maybe these three U.S. leaders forgot that the U.S. has used the same excuses and equivocations to justify its use of depleted uranium against innocent Iraqis several times over a 20-year period, leading to vastly increased incidences of cancer (especially leukemia) and birth defects in Iraqi children.

As Marjorie Cohn and Jeanne Mirer, both associated with human rights organizations, have reported, the U.S. also used white phosphorous gas, which melts the skin and burns tissue down to the bone, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. A third weapon used by the U.S. in both those countries is cluster bombs, which contain tiny bomblets that spread over a vast area and can kill or maim long after being deployed if civilians, often children, disturb them.

Cohn and Mirer write, “The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (Geneva IV) classifies ‘willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health’ as a grave breach, which constitutes a war crime.” Our leaders can always be counted on to lament the loss of civilian lives, but they do little else to prevent such losses.

Kerry’s comments about Assad’s use of gas, that it “defies any code of morality” and should “shock the conscience of the world,” apply equally to America’s conduct in its wars. But the U.S. has not been held to account for the “use (of) the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people."

And neither McCain, Obama, nor Kerry is calling for America to be held accountable. Their claimed moral outrage at the use of Assad’s weapons is mere hypocrisy until they take responsibility for our own human rights violations.

While I agree that Assad’s use of gas is an affront to civilization, it is time to acknowledge that the U.S. has committed similar atrocities that also affront humanity. What disturbs me even more, however, is that over 100,000 people have been killed so far in the Syrian civil war. This fact should be even more alarming than the deaths of 1,500 by unconventional methods.

I have tried to understand why unconventional weapons -- chlorine, phosgene, mustard, and sarin gas, along with phosphorous gas, depleted uranium, and cluster bombs, and atomic bombs and their successors -- are viewed as being in a special class of war-making weapons that various people see as so exceptional that they should be banned. I understand that a gas attack can be very painful and leave people in agony for days before they die, but conventional weapons often have the same result.

When it comes to atomic and hydrogen bombs, I understand that their widespread use would likely end life as we know it on the earth. But this is not true of the other weapons, including the sarin gas that Assad is likely to have used recently against his foes in Syria. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s countries oppose chemical weapons. This figure would impress me more if the same number of countries opposed all military weapons that kill and maim indiscriminately.

If the purpose of war is to kill the enemy until it surrenders, it is unclear to me why any weapon should be considered more horrendous than another. War has always meant indiscriminate death. The best solution to indiscriminate death is negotiation, preferably through the UN or other international bodies.

The U.S. has not pressed negotiation aggressively in Syria because its perceived interests are best served by prolonging that civil war. Syria’s allies include Iran and Hezbollah. Tying up Iran and Hezbollah in helping Assad diverts their attention from other mischief, such as bothering Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

In addition, the U.S. doesn’t know whom to support among groups that oppose Assad. All of the groups could become bitter enemies of the U.S. should they prevail and come to power in Syria. This is what happened in Egypt. The U.S. supported the ouster of Mubarak (after many years of supporting him), only to see a democratic election put the Muslim Brotherhood’s choice in power, making necessary (from the U.S. perspective) the ouster of President Morsi by the Egyptian military.

But the U.S. government won’t call that a coup by the military because we don’t have any good options there to bring someone to power who will do our bidding. The Egyptian military, supported by $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid, is not a reliable friend. And why should it be, when $12 billion has been pledged by Arab sources?

For all those too young to remember Bob Dylan’s words, the lyrics to “Masters of War,” which I find useful to read occasionally as a reminder of what drives the American war machine, can be found here. Dylan identifies the “masters of war” as those who build weapons, from which they become wealthy, thus giving them an incentive to push for war whenever possible.

By implication, Dylan suggests we should “follow the money,” to see who benefits from war. He sees these people (and their minions in Congress) as indifferent to human life. He references their lies and deception, the fear they generate, and the immorality of their actions.

President Obama now wants to punish Syria for its use of sarin gas, but he wants the approval of Congress to do so. It is beginning to sound as if Obama will attack Syria, with or without congressional approval, but finds it politically advantageous to get its approval, if that doesn’t take too long.

Considering the forces arrayed in favor of attacking Syria -- the Pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, the neoconservative pundits who took us into Iraq, policy institutes (think tanks) that have produced such people as National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, the entire arms industry, and most of the oil industry -- there is little doubt that the U.S. will attack Syria. Only the duration and extent of that involvement seem in question.

Dylan’s words remain relevant 50 years later, and will probably remain so as long as human beings exist. If it is possible to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice and freedom, we could do worse than pay more attention to what Dylan had to say.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Robert Jensen : Truce at the UT Factory

East Mall fountain, University of Texas at Austin. Photo by Frank Jaquier / Flickr.

With truce at the UT factory,
time to face tough choices

More than ever we need a university that refuses to serve power and instead focuses its resources on the compelling questions of social justice and ecological sustainability.

By Robert Jensen / The Rag Blog / September 5, 2013

AUSTIN -- A truce seems to have been negotiated in the long-running skirmish between the University of Texas and its conservative critics. The Board of Regents’ new chairman has toned down the rhetoric and signaled he wants to reduce tensions that have built over the past two years, which suggests that UT president Bill Powers may keep his job, at least for now.

The start of a new school year, along with this lull in the public squabbling (though Lord only knows what is going on behind the scenes), is a good time to step back and evaluate both sides of the debate.

On one side are Gov. Rick Perry and the regents he has appointed. Their basic complaint is that UT isn’t efficient enough in pursuing what they seem to believe is the primary purpose of the modern university: Churning out technologically competent and politically compliant graduates who will take their slots in the corporate capitalist hierarchy without complaining or questioning.

From that perspective, too many resources are being wasted on irrelevant research by a self-indulgent faculty, and the campus needs a president who can crack some professorial skulls.

On the other side are UT officials and supporters in the state Legislature who defend the quality of the instruction and research at the university, invoking the tradition of academic freedom and an intellectually diverse university, and/or Longhorn loyalty.

As a longtime UT faculty member (with tenure, and hence wide latitude to say what I really think), I don’t hesitate to condemn the anti-intellectual attacks coming from right-wing forces that want to undermine genuine critical thinking. But I also recognize that some of the conservative critique is on target -- there is a lot of irrelevant research being done by a lot of self-indulgent professors, though conservatives misunderstand the problem that creates.


Not enough oxygen for critical thinking

Because of both forces -- attacks pushing the university to the right, and faculty complacency -- there’s not enough genuine critical thinking going on at UT, at a time in the world when multiple cascading crises -- economic and ecological -- demand a critical thinking that is tougher than ever.

Stated bluntly: In 21 years of teaching at UT, I have seen how the reactionary politics of the conservatives and self-serving reactions of the faculty have not served students or society very well. The solution isn’t to force the university to become more factory-like or to defend the existing system of evaluating professors. Instead, we should ask: What is real critical thinking, and on what should it be focused?

Let’s start with the roots of the public squabble: Right-wing forces run the United States, and most of the world, but are never satisfied. Corporate profits are healthy and democracy is ailing; the increasing concentration of wealth undermines the radicalizing potential of democratic processes.

But that level of domination is never enough for the masters, and the right-wing has long wanted to shut down spaces where even token resistance is still possible, especially in journalism and education.

Challenges to corporate values are possible in the university, but that doesn’t mean they are widespread. Take one look at the UT catalog -- pay special attention to the economics and business courses -- and you will see the university isn’t exactly on the front lines of the revolution. The University of Texas is a corporately-run institution largely supportive of corporate values.

Where do faculty members fit in all this? The vast majority coexist with that corporate structure and value system, either because they agree with it or because they have decided not to fight. For the past three decades -- after the threat to an “orderly” society that broke out on college campuses in the 1960s was largely contained -- most faculty have been willing to keep their heads down and let individual career interests be their guide.

In science and technology fields, the result has been increased capitulation of research agendas to corporate demands. University research increasingly is valued when it can be turned into profit, the sooner the better, regardless of the effects on society or ecosystems. Basic science that has no immediate profit-potential is allowed, in part because it provides a necessary foundation for more applied work.

In the humanities and social sciences, the result has been a trend not only toward research that serves the master, but toward research that just doesn’t much matter. The most glaring example is the faddishness of so-called “postmodern” approaches to society, in which marginally coherent “theorizing” that is detached from the real world is not only accepted but celebrated.

When I ask students how they react to this allegedly sophisticated material, they usually roll their eyes. To them, it’s just one more part of college that must be endured to get a degree, like standing in line to get forms signed.

In the social sciences, researchers can easily advance careers not by asking important questions about how systems of power work, but by constructing complex models and methodologies that are, again, so allegedly sophisticated that they have to be important. Students also find most of this kind of work annoying, especially when faculty members have a hard time explaining why the articles being assigned are worth plodding through.


Finding our focus

I’m painting with a broad brush, of course. The University of Texas has many outstanding faculty members who care -- both about students and about the state of the world. I have colleagues I respect and from whom I learn. But the mediocrity and mendacity that I am describing is routine, and the system not only allows but rewards it.

If an individual professor breaks out of the system and spends too much time writing in plain language about subjects that potentially threaten the powerful, the career path gets rocky. As a result, most faculty members take the path of least resistance, accepting the conventional politics of the university and their academic disciplines.

I’ve been lucky in my own career, entering academic life more than two decades ago when it was easier to chart an alternative path; being white and male with the accompanying privileges; and getting some lucky breaks from sympathetic colleagues. As a result, I’ve been able to spend my career writing and teaching from a sharply critical perspective, and keep my job.

My focus has been on the human and ecological crises that existing systems of power -- both corporate and governmental -- have created and the problems those systems cannot honestly face, let alone solve.

That’s what I mean by critical thinking: Focusing first on power, and how concentrations of power undermine decent human communities. That focus is more important than ever, as the human species faces new and unique threats to a sustainable future. Climate change, soil erosion, fresh water shortages, chemical contamination, species extinction -- pick a topic in ecology, and the news is bad and getting worse, and our economic system is compounding the problems.

More than ever we need a university that refuses to serve power and instead focuses its resources on the compelling questions of social justice and ecological sustainability. Instead, the University of Texas has been caught up in a struggle with right-wing forces that want to eliminate what little space for critical thinking still exists. Given the siege mentality that this attack produces, critical self-reflection by faculty members is more difficult than ever.

I believe in the power of people to collectively face these problems and turn away from the death cult of contemporary consumer capitalism shaped by corporate values, and I believe that education is an important part of that struggle. I do not believe the University of Texas, as it exists today, is likely to contribute much to that struggle unless it not only fights the right-wing forces but recognizes that it is failing students and society.

To my faculty colleagues who scoff at this analysis, I would say: You are smart people, probably smarter than I, but being smart isn’t everything. Instead of investing time in your building status in academic cliques -- where you spend a lot of energy reminding each other how smart you are -- wade out into the world and let your work be guided by a simple question: How are we humans going to save ourselves and save the planet from ruin? We live in an unsustainable system that was created by systems that concentrate wealth and power. Do we care?

America is burning, and professors have a choice to fiddle or fight.

This article was also published at the Austin Post.

[Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. His latest books are Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue and We Are All Apocalyptic Now: On the Responsibilities of Teaching, Preaching, Reporting, Writing, and Speaking Out. His writing is published extensively in mainstream and alternative media. Robert Jensen can be reached at rjensen@austin.utexas.edu. Read more articles by Robert Jensen on The Rag Blog.]

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Johnny Hazard : Mexico City Rocked by Massive Teacher Protest

Teachers mobilize in Mexico City, Wednesday, September 4, 2013. Photo by Alejandro Mancilla / The Rag Blog.

Militant teachers' strike:
Massive protests continue in Mexico

The actions were a continuation of protests against an education 'reform' package first passed by Congress on new President Enrique Peña Nieto's first day in office.

By Johnny Hazard / The Rag Blog / September 5, 2013 

MEXICO CITY -- Thousands of teachers, mostly members of the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), remain camped out in the center of Mexico City after having initiated a series of protests that have included blocking the airport for a day, blockades at the two major television networks in demand for equal time (they received three and five minutes, respectively), and marches that have forced the closure of various major thoroughfares and Metro stations.

Massive marches took place on Sunday, September 1, and Wednesday, September 4. The actions were a continuation of protests against an education "reform" package passed by Congress on new President Enrique Peña Nieto's first day in office.

There were also actions in other parts of Mexico including an hour-long shutdown of the border bridge by teachers in Juárez. A demonstration by teachers in Los Cabos blocked the airport there.

The actions of the CNTE do not represent, numerically, the biggest demonstrations in recent Mexican history, but have proven to be the strongest; the anti-election fraud movements of 2006 and 2012, and the militant protests after 45,000 electricians were arbitrarily fired by the federal government in 2009, pale in comparison.

Federal police mobilize in response to militant teachers' action on Wednesday, September 4. Photo by Alejandro Mancilla / The Rag Blog.

With the protests of Chicago teachers this year and last, the demonstrations in Mexico City represent the most significant resistance to big-business-based education reform thus far.

September 1 is, by law, the day the president delivers his annual report ("informe," similar to the State of the Union address). This year, the teachers planned to interrupt it or block roads leading to the Congress, so the president postponed his presentation until the next day, Monday, and had his top cabinet official hand over the written report to the Congress.

There was a march of about 50,000 teachers, with numbers disproportionately from Oaxaca. Since there were thousands of police and soldiers awaiting them at the Congress building, they began marching instead toward the presidential palace  Less than halfway, the rank and file (especially, again, those from Oaxaca) -- after receiving news that the Congress had already begun meeting to pass a remaining set of "reforms" that day -- demanded to go to the Congress.

So the marchers turned back towards the Congress building. As they got closer, some in the crowd -- many of them not teachers -- got into confrontations with police. There were a few arrests of "ultra" protesters -- including young urban "anarquistas" as well as bystanders and independent reporters. Most of these arrests occurred  miles from the original march route, as the police had surrounded marchers and forced them to a distant location.

A group of 30 police horses were spooked by loud noise when officers took them out of their trailers near the Congress building and they stampeded through downtown Mexico City, causing quite a stir and substantial damage, especially to cars.in their paths, and a number of horses were injured as a result.

Monday and Tuesday, the Senate met to approve the reforms. Several Metro stations and at least three major avenues were closed all day -- by the cops, not by the protesters -- an example of how the ostensibly leftist city government is cooperating with its federal allies, in this case by creating traffic problems and blaming the teachers.

Wednesday brought a 24-hour work stoppage by teachers, including many in Mexico City, and a massive "insurgent mobilization." Again, about 50,000 teachers and supporters gathered at the national auditorium, near the presidential residence, leading to speculation that the plan was to surround and shut down the residence, known as "Los Pinos."

Demonstrators rally in Mexico City on Wednesday. Photo by Alejandro Mancilla / The Rag Blog.

But, perhaps because President Enrique Peña Nieto left Tuesday for the G-20 summit in Russia, the marchers instead headed toward other federal office buildings. After hours during which a group of teachers' representatives were inside negotiating with low-level government officials, the marchers were still on the streets, in the rain, blocking a stretch of "the most beautiful avenue in Latin America," Paseo de la Reforma -- and were making plans to return to their encampment and launch similar actions on Thursday, including the possibility of a nationwide work stoppage.

Tens of thousands of teachers in the states of Veracruz and Oaxaca are already on strike. Teachers -- who have been disproportionately blamed for students' low academic achievement -- are demanding that they be evaluated by means other than simple standardized tests and that, in turn, president Peña Nieto and the television networks also be evaluated.

Among the non-teacher participants Wednesday were a girl of about five years old with a T shirt that read, "Today I didn't go to school. I came here to defend public education" and hundreds of women from the Triqui indigenous group of Oaxaca in their bright red traditional dresses.

Peña Nieto's annual report -- echoed constantly in advertising paid for by the government to promote its agenda -- promised 120 days of major transformations in Mexico. That is probably true, but it remains to be seen whether the changes will be the ones that he has in mind.

Representatives of the CNTE have announced their intention to stay in Mexico City at least until Sunday, September 8, to participate in a rally organized by opposition political leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador against the privatization of the petroleum industry, and it is likely that they will try to hold out until September 16 to impede official Independence Day celebrations that take place every year in the Zócalo (central square) of Mexico City, exactly where the CNTE has its enormous tent city installed.

[A former Minneapolis teacher, Johnny Hazard now lives in Mexico City where he is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México and author of Con estos estudiantes: La vivencia en la UACM, a book about that alternative university.]

See earlier Rag Blog coverage of the continuing Mexican teachers' protests by Johnny Hazard and Shirley Youxjeste.

The demonstrators included young urban "anarchistas." Photo by Alejandro Mancilla / The Rag Blog.

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RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Chicago's Mike Klonsky Fights for Public Education, 'Small Schools'

Chicago education activist Mike Klonsky in the studios of KOOP Radio, Austin, Texas, Friday, August 20, 2013. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Rag Radio podcast:
Former SDS leader Mike Klonsky is fighter
for 'Small Schools' and democratic education

A veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle against the War in Vietnam, Mike has been involved in community and labor organizing as well as the fight for democratic education.

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / September 4, 2013

Former SDS leader Mike Klonsky, now a Chicago-based public education activist and advocate for "Small Schools," joined us on Rag Radio, Friday, August 30, 2013.

Rag Radio is a weekly syndicated radio program produced and hosted by long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, and recorded at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.

Listen to or download our August 24 interview with Mike Klonsky here:


Mike Klonsky is an educator, an education theorist, a public schools activist, and a “Small Schools” advocate.

A veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle against the War in Vietnam, Klonsky was a leader in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), serving as SDS National Secretary in 1968, and has been involved in community and labor organizing as well as the fight for democratic education. A "red diaper baby," his father was a life-long activist and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War.

Mike Klonsky teaches in the College of Education at DePaul University. One of the founders of the Small Schools Workshop, Mike serves as its national director. He also coaches basketball at a Chicago high school. Klonsky is the author of Small Schools: The Numbers Tell a Story (University of Illinois Small Schools Workshop) and co-author, along with Bill Ayers and Gabe Lyon, of A Simple Justice: The Challenge for Teachers in Small Schools (Teachers College Press).

Mike Klonsky on Rag Radio. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Mike served as a member of the National Advisory Council on Youth Violence and is past president of the editorial board of Catalyst, Chicago’s school-reform journal. He has also written extensively on the history and progress of Chicago’s dynamic struggles to save and transform public schools. His SmallTalk Blog is read by thousands of educators and activists.

Read Mike Klonsky's August 27, 2013, article, "Drive-By Teachers and the Great Charter School Scam," on The Rag Blog.


Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is now also aired on KPFT-HD3 90.1 -- Pacifica radio in Houston -- on Wednesdays at 1 p.m.

The show is streamed live on the web and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, September 6, 2013: Award-winning novelist and screenwriter Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and Challenger Park.
Friday, September 13, 2013: Populist author and commentator Jim Hightower.
Friday, September 20, 2013: Long-time activist Michael James, founder of Rising Up Angry and Chicago's Heartland Cafe.

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Drop Gas Masks, Not Bombs

Think out of the box. Digital art by Neho / deviantART.

Act out of the box:
Drop gas masks, not bombs

Use the power of the U.S. in nonviolent, non-military, nonlethal ways to counter Assad’s (or the rebels’) possible use of chemical weapons.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / September 4, 2013

If moving to the right is violently destructive and moving to the left is disgustingly immoral, then something is wrong with the box we are in.

Think out of the box, act out of the box.

That’s where the U.S. is in regard to Syria: All the “official” choices -- from Do Nothing to One Strike to Overthrow the Regime -- are destructive to us, to the Syrian people, to the U.S. Constitution, and/or to international law.

So -- think fresh.

Drop gas masks, not bombs.

That’s a metaphor.

Translate: use the power of the U.S. in nonviolent, non-military, nonlethal ways to counter Assad’s (or the rebels’) possible use of chemical weapons.

• If gas masks would not meet the need, drop antidotes to the nerve gas Sarin, sending instructions in Arabic by radio and social media.
• Test out what would happen if the U.S. invited physicians to be parachuted into Syria, as brave as the soldiers that some U.S. politicians want to send.
• Drop leaflets and broadcast radio and social-media messages denouncing the use of chemical weaponry and offering amnesty and monetary rewards to anyone in the military who comes forward with information on their use.
• Bollix the Syrian military’s computer system just as the U.S. bollixed the Iranian nuclear-research system without killing anyone.
• Ask the government of Iran to intervene with its ally Syria to demand a total end to any use of chem-war, and offer Iran relaxation of U.S. sanctions against it if it does so.
• (In Iran there is fierce opposition to chem-war because Saddam used it in Iraq’s war against Iran, killing tens of thousands. The U.S., by the way, uttered not a peep of criticism of Sadaam’s use of chem-war, because the U.S. government saw Iran as an enemy. Indeed, the U.S. may have assisted Saddam in using chem-war.)
• Go to the UN Security Council as well as Congress for approval of such nonlethal, nonviolent interventions.
• And so on. Get it?

What is wrong with the box we are in?

What Obama was publicly proposing, “One Strike” to “punish” and “deter” chem-war, had a very risky flaw: It was essentially assuming “one-man chess.” Either the OneStrike would accomplish nothing real -- a useless act -- or if it did hurt, it might well push Assad into retaliating. If there were a response, a retaliatory attack on U.S. forces or assets or on Israel, etc., would the U.S. then shrug and do nothing -- or would the U.S. then re-retaliate? And then?

Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting that in fact, under pressure from hawkish Senators, Obama is now actually planning much more than One Strike -- rather, an attack to “degrade,’ not only “deter,” Assad’s military, with the intention of regime change.

And there are other reports that the actual text of the resolution that Obama is asking Congress to approve is considerably broader than the One Strike he has said he wants.

So we may after all be standing on our tiptoes at the very edge of the precipice of still another immoral, illegal, unwinnable, self-destructive war.

If our own government pushes us over the edge of that precipice, the real losers will be the American and Syrian peoples. There, even greater devastation. Here, another wave of failure to meet the real and increasingly urgent civilian needs for schools, bridges, solar and wind energy, firefghters, and much more.

More deaths and disasters from forest fires, floods, droughts. Another wave of justifying, in the name of anti-terrorism, intrusive unconstitutional surveillance of practically everyone; police infiltration of peaceful mosques and political activists; and vigilante attacks on Muslims.

What to do? Call 202/224-3121 (the U.S. Capitol) and ask for your Senators and House member, one at a time. When you get each office, leave a message vigorously opposing any resolution authorizing military force against Syria, and pointing to nonviolent, nonlethal alternatuve ways of intervening.

Write a similar letter to your local newspaper.

Forward this message to your friends and to listserves you are on.

Try to start a viral message: Drop gas-masks, not bombs.

One of the metaphors of Rosh Hashanah is that we plead with God -- which means also with ourselves -- to move from the throne of Punitive Justice to the throne of Compassionate Repair.

If not now, when?

[Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center. His newest book, co-authored with R. Phyllis Berman, is Freedom Journeys: The Tale of Exodus and Wilderness across Millennia (Jewish Lights), available from Shouk Shalom our on-line bookstore. Read more articles by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on The Rag Blog.]

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Ron Jacobs : Cruise Missile Morality

Tomahawk cruise missile launched from the Navy destroyer USS Halsey during a 2007 test. Image from U.S. Navy / NBC News.

Here they go again:
Cruise missile morality

If one examines the overall policy of Washington towards Syria over the years, any response other than skepticism about its purported goals in its current policy rings exceedingly hollow.

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / September 4, 2013

Here Washington goes again, talking about blowing up homes, military buildings, and people in faraway lands. Of course, the reason presented to the U.S. populace for this bluster before the crime is based on a morality that considers a military response to have some kind of moral foundation.

Yet, even if we believe the president’s rationale of a chemical attack, the accusations against the Assad government in this case remain flimsy and impossible to prove. Indeed, all of the evidence against either side in this case is purely circumstantial. In other words, there is plenty of reasonable doubt as to who the perpetrators of the attack were and even if it happened at all.

Why do Americans pretend that their weaponry is somehow more moral than that of other combatants? Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton lobbed cruise missiles at his perceived enemies the way kids throw rocks. The net result ended up being dead innocents, unnecessary destruction, angry governments, and negligible political results.

Cruise missiles always seemed to me to be nothing more than car bombs of U.S. imperialism. Ostensibly targeting certain buildings or people, they often kill with little regard to who happens to be near the target. In addition, like the drones favored by Obama, the element of surprise these weapons depend on intensifies the likelihood that innocents will be killed. Just more collateral damage.

Tomahawk cruise missiles were originally manufactured by General Dynamics, one of the few corporations in the U.S. (if not the world), that makes all of its profit from designing and manufacturing weapons systems and the software required to target and deliver the ammunition those systems exist for. The missiles are now manufactured by Raytheon, another corporation whose profits are derived primarily from the machinery of death.

The weapons can be launched from ships and from land. They travel at a subsonic speed and the newer versions can be redirected in flight, should a “juicier” target present itself. Their payload can consist of several smaller armed missiles. Each Tomahawk costs around $569,000 to $1.5 million.

It is not my purpose here to dismiss the grotesquery of the images presented to the world portraying an alleged chemical attack in Syria. However, to pretend that there is genuine proof as to who perpetrated the attack is at the least a cynical manipulation of the facts available. Furthermore, the plan from Washington and other Western capitals to launch an attack on Syria in “response” is not a solution. It is as morally repugnant as the alleged attack and just as likely to expand the death and killing as it is to lessen it.

If one examines the overall policy of Washington towards Syria over the years, any response other than skepticism about its purported goals in its current policy rings exceedingly hollow. This becomes even more so when one examines the comments made regarding Syria since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One such comment came from then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in testimony before a Congressional committee in October 2005:

Unless we commit to changing the nature of the Middle East [italics mine], and if we tire and decide that we are going to withdraw and leave the people of the Middle East to despair, I can assure you that the people of the United States are going to live in insecurity and fear for many, many decades to come.

As the past years have shown, it is that insistence on changing the Middle East to fit Washington’s goals that is causing the insecurity and fear anticipated by Ms. Rice.

Sending cruise missiles or, god forbid, something more lethal to attack Assad’s troops and military bases will not decrease Washington’s insecurity or that of its populace. Nor is it likely to cause any participants in that nation’s conflict to change their stance.

Instead, we are likely to see an increase in all of the negatives associated with the war. The least of these negatives will be Washington's claims of a higher moral purpose and the worst will be the ramping up of the murder this and all wars revel in.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His novel, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, was published in 2013, along with the third novel in the series All the Sinners Saints. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

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Michael James : Muddy Waters and James Cotton at the Fat Black Pussycat, 1963

Muddy Waters and James Cotton at the Fat Black Pussycat in Chicago, 1963. Photo by Michael James from his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.

Pictures from the Long Haul:
Muddy Waters and James Cotton 
at the Fat Black Pussycat, 1963

Music has always been big in my life... In the 1950’s I was all in when Rock and Roll swept the scene, its fans, its makers, and its content crossing racial boundaries. No more Snooky Lanson and Your Hit Parade for me.

By Michael James / The Rag Blog / September 3, 2013

[In this series, Michael James is sharing images from his rich past, accompanied by reflections about -- and inspired by -- those images. This photo will be included in his forthcoming book, Michael Gaylord James' Pictures from the Long Haul.]

My younger brother Beau was often ahead of me: like having a car with a nice paint job, and knowing what was going on in music. In our early Bedford Junior High years, while I was probably listening to Pat Boone muck up Fats Domino’s "Blueberry Hill," Beau and a little band of hipsters, the Jolly Jazzbos, were down in Norwalk at the Forest Hotel, a black joint where bluesman Jimmy Reed was too drugged-up and drunked-up to perform. They got to see him nod out on stage.

Regarding the paint job: when he graduated from high school, Beau spent the next year working at Kerrigan’s Auto Body, a place worthy of one hell of a sitcom. Beau had a beautiful 1950 Ford convertible. Unfortunately, I backed it out of the shop’s painting bay where it had just received a new paint job, leaving it with a big scratch.

It was only days since I had returned from my motorcycle trip to Mexico City and my eye-mind-heart-opening summer of study and adventure. Then I headed back on the highway with Beau, in his Ford. We headed west to Illinois, to Lake Forest College -- I to be a junior and Beau a freshman. I was glad to be bringing him along. I knew it would be a good year.

While I was now more aware of the world, I was still not old enough to drink legally, and not old enough to vote. I felt more grown up, though: smarter, and certainly cooler. However, I was (and still am) prone to infantile anti-authoritarianism; I refused to sign in for the required all-student-body college convocations. I conspicuously walked on the grass near the administration building that sported “Keep off the Grass” signs. (Hey, grass is for walking on!) I parked Beau’s Ford in the college president’s designated parking space, which seemed sensible since the Prez didn’t use it.

Having experimented with weed in Mexico, I was of course hooked, appreciating how it enhanced my perceptions. And I was looking for more. This quest took me and some friends to a pool hall in Waukegan where we found it, getting a lid from a pool-shooting black kid. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the same effect as the smoke in Mexico City, and I recall I felt burned.

All this said, it wasn’t as if I was going to the dogs: I was a productive young guy. I was getting A’s, going to classes, lectures, and the library. I was involved with student organizations and government, and the college newspaper, The Stentor. I explored religion, and considered becoming a minister. Checking out the religious scene had me going to Quaker meetings, visiting the Bahia Temple, and attending Unitarian services. I was unconsciously developing and nurturing the roots of my own spirituality and future political action.

That process included meeting William Sloan Coffin, the Yale Chaplain. He spoke at Lake Forest and we talked at a reception at President Cole’s home. He was among a growing number of people who influenced and inspired me. A few years later someone reported that he asked, “What happened to that young guy with good ideas?”

Ideas don’t drop from the sky. Humans learn from experience, both their own and others'. Learning: I was being exposed to, participating in, and observing all manner of things. In The Stentor office I heard about the New Left through the College Press Service. It reported on a meeting in Hazard, Kentucky, of unemployed coal miners with members of Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Northern Student Movement. That event caught my interest.

And the events kept coming.

On campus there was a foreign film series, and there were many speakers. I heard Alan Watts talk about Zen. I thought Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan was great -- though the sorority housemothers and some sorority sisters did not and were bent out of shape by her ideas on women in society.

Classmates Dave Feldman and Penelope Bartok (now Rosemont) started the Jacobin Society, a leftist club that brought liberal and radical speakers to campus. There was Fair Play for Cuba, the American Friends Service Committee, Jay Miller of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Carl Shier, a labor organizer with the United Auto Workers. I really liked him. And the Jacobin Society provided my first encounter with Joffre Stewart, a black beat poet, anarchist, and long-time contrarian-type guy in Chicago’s left political scene. He got someone to burn a draft card at our small meeting!

On the music and political front we brought the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Freedom Singers to campus. I drove the school’s van that brought them back to Hyde Park, to the home of Sylvia Fischer, who called herself a socialist and was a leader in the Chicago Area Friends of SNCC. James Foreman, a SNCC leader and major civil rights movement thinker, was handing out travel money. Willy Peacock said: “I can’t get back to Mississippi on $25” -- to which Foreman gruffly replied: “You have to.”

Music has always been big in my life -- listening, playing, singing, and dancing. In the 1950’s I was all in when Rock and Roll swept the scene, its fans, its makers, and its content crossing racial boundaries. No more Snooky Lanson and Your Hit Parade for me. Beau and I would blast our tunes. Our dad, a Broadway musical kind of guy, would yell up the stairs: “What do you think this is -- a fucking plantation?” Oh, Dad.

I danced my ass off on November 22, 1957, when Bo Diddley came to St Anthony’s Hall in Saugatuck, the Italian section of Westport. The ticket price was $5 a couple. I had a jug of cider brought back from a visit to see Beau at a school named North Hampton, in New Hampshire.

I loosened the cap to let the cider ferment. Apparently Beau had done the same thing, getting kicked out of that school a few weeks later when he got drunk and stole the school’s tractor for a nighttime joy ride into town. I too got drunk, sharing swigs of fermented, hard apple cider with Jerome, Bo Diddley’s maraca player. That was a night to remember!

A friend’s dad drove us to New York for Alan Freed’s rock ‘n roll shows at Lowe’s State and Brooklyn Paramount theatres. I went to shows at the Apollo in Harlem. I listened to Jocko’s Rocket Ship Show on WNJR out of Newark (“Woo-ditty-wop and we’re back with the Jock, back on the scene with the record machine...”). Late at night I listened to tunes on CKLW from Windsor, Ontario, and the Hound Dog Show from Buffalo’s WBLK. I started getting a regular dose of country and western listening to WWVA out of Wheeling, West Virginia.

Doing my time at Lake Forest from 1960 to 1964, the good music kept on coming -- listening to lots of jazz, plus Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Dave "Snaker" Ray, and Spider John Koerner. And Doc Watson, Roscoe Holcomb, The Country Gentleman, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, the Seeger family, as well as chain gang chants and field hollers on Folkways Records.

Active on the Cultural Activities Committee, I met Old Town School of Folk Music pioneers Fleming Brown and George and Gerry Armstrong. We brought Mississippi country bluesmen Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon, a guy named St. Louis Jimmy, and Muddy Waters’ cousin Otis Spann to the College.

I met Mike Bloomfield and Charlie Musselwhite, who were hanging around Joe Segal and Bob Koester’s Jazz Record Mart on Wabash below Roosevelt University. I worked with Bloomfield to put on a little blues show at a high school for the local Junior Chamber of Commerce; attendance at this early production was sparse.

My professor friend Sam Pasiencier, who’d developed the rolls of film from my 1962 Mexico motorcycle trip, took me to a place in Chicago on Broadway north of Diversey called the Fat Black Pussy Cat. There we saw Muddy Waters playing with harmonica player James Cotton and some young white musicians. I got a good shot of Muddy and James.

Early in the summer of 1963 I was heading to the Twin Cities on my motorcycle. Outside of Portage, Wisconsin, the engine blew. I chained the Triumph to a fence, hiked through fields and knocked on a farmhouse door. A big farmer in overalls let me use the phone in his kitchen. That night I took a bus out of Mauston, riding north to meet up with Beau and his squeeze Ellie, daughter of Werner Pese who had been my freshman World History professor -- a smart man and heavy smoker, with a heavy German accent.

A few days later, the three of us returned to the bike, with a trailer hooked to the back of the Ford. Back in Illinois, I sold the Triumph to a motorcycle shop in East Chicago, Indiana.

That summer I participated in an open-air art exhibit in the Lake Forest town square, displaying my welded sculptures, a torso carved from stone, and figures made of clay. Then, still needing language credit, I headed back to Connecticut for another dose of español.

I attended Trinity College in Hartford. Terry Montgomery and Tim Lyons were the two guys I hung with at Trinity. Tim lived in Kent, where we visited his family’s dairy farm. He urged me to climb on the back of a young Guernsey cow. I expected her to buck, rodeo-like, and could only laugh when the frightened beast stood in place, shitting and swinging her tail, decorating my backside.

The civil rights movement and upcoming March on Washington were in the news. The New York Times reported the leaders of the March were forcing SNCC’s John Lewis (now Congressman John Lewis) to cool it on radical demands, weakening his call for jobs and freedom to accommodate the Kennedy Administration. Tim, Terry, and I headed to Washington, D.C. in a green VW bug and spent the eve of the March at the home of a lady friend of Terry’s. He said she was a nymphomaniac; I had to ask what that was.

On the morning of August 23, 1963, we were moving: first in the little green critter of a car surrounded by busloads of people on the freedom road; then we walked -- marching, surrounded by a mass of humanity. And then thousands upon thousands of us stood together as one at the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool. We felt a real sense of hope and togetherness, a belief in the future.

To this day I welcome the tears that come every time I hear Dr. King as he declares, “I have a dream... we shall over come, someday... black and white together.”

That day is good forever.

[Michael James is a former SDS national officer, the founder of Rising Up Angry, co-founder of Chicago's Heartland Café (1976 and still going), and co-host of the Saturday morning (9-10 a.m. CDT) Live from the Heartland radio show, here and on YouTube. He is reachable by one and all at michael@heartlandcafe.com. Find more articles by Michael James on The Rag Blog.]

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RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Musician/Author Bobby Bridger & 'Lost Gonzo' Guitarist John Inmon

Musician and author Bobby Bridger with guitarist John Inmon at the KOOP studios in Austin, Texas, August 23, 2013. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Rag Radio podcast:
Singer-songwriter and author Bobby Bridger
with 'Lost Gonzo' guitarist John Inmon

Houston-based musician Bobby Bridger, also a chronicler of the old west and American indigenous culture, was joined by signature Austin guitarist John Inman.

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / September 3, 2013

Bobby Bridger, singer-songwriter, author, and noted historian of the old west, and virtuoso guitarist John Inman, original member of the Lost Gonzo Band, joined host Thorne Dreyer, Friday, August 23, 2013, in discussion and live performance on Rag Radio.

Rag Radio is a syndicated radio program produced at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.

Listen to or download our August 24 interview show with Bobby Bridger and John Inmon here:


Legendary Texas musician Bobby Bridger, who is also a noted historian of the old west and of indigenous American culture, was our guest for the third time on Rag Radio. Virtuoso guitarist and original 'Lost Gonzo' John Inmon joined Bridger on the show. Bridger and Inmon have worked together for over 40 years and are currently co-producing an album which they are developing through Kickstarter. It is Bridger’s first studio album in 12 years.

Houston-based singer-songwriter Bobby Bridger is also an author, playwright, painter, and historian. He has recorded numerous albums and is the author of four books including A Ballad of the West, Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull: Inventing the Wild West, and Where the Tall Grass Grows: Becoming Indigenous and the Mythological Legacy of the American West, and the epic theatrical trilogy, A Ballad of the West. Bobby has appeared on PBS’s Austin City Limits, PBS’s American Experience, and CBS' Good Morning America.

Also listen to our November 18, 2011 and September 3, 2012 Rag Radio shows with Bobby Bridger at the Internet Archive.

From left, Bobby Bridger and John Inmon with Rag Radio's Thorne Dreyer and Tracey Schulz. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Austin musician John Inmon is considered one of Texas’ signature guitarists. He was an original member of the famed Lost Gonzo Band, founded in 1973, which toured with Jerry Jeff Walker and appeared three times on Austin City Limits. He also toured with Michael Murphey (now known as Michael Martin Murphey) as part of  the Cosmic Cowboy Orchestra. Inmon has also played with Townes van Zandt, Jimmy LaFave, Eliza Gilkyson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, Delbert Mcclinton, Marcia Ball, Omar and the Howlers, and many more.

John Inmon was honored as the 2012 Texas Music Awards Producer of the Year.

Rag Radio is hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Rag Radio has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas. Rag Radio is broadcast live every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP and is rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EDT) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is now also aired and streamed on KPFT-HD3 90.1 -- Pacifica radio in Houston -- on Wednesdays at 1 p.m.

The show is streamed live on the web and, after broadcast, all Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive Internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
Friday, September 6, 2013: Award-winning novelist and screenwriter Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo and Challenger Park.
Friday, September 13, 2013: Populist author and commentator Jim Hightower.
Friday, September 20, 2013: Long-time activist Michael James, founder of Rising Up Angry and Chicago's Heartland Cafe.

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Lamar W. Hankins : The Tyranny of the Manning Trial

Pfc. Bradley Manning. Graphic by DonkeyHotey / Flickr.

A failure of the justice system:
The tyranny of the Manning trial

Pfc. Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in a military prison for embarrassing the government in a trial that grossly violated the constitutional guarantee of due process.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / September 3, 2013

The right to due process is the bedrock of the right to trial in this country. The recently concluded trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning [who has since expressed her intention to live as a woman and be known as Chelsea Manning] demonstrates that Manning did not receive due process, that is, procedural fairness and government actions that follow the law in all relevant aspects. Both the military courts and the civilian courts are controlled by the same Constitution, though Manning’s trial calls this proposition into question.

Certainly, Manning received the outward appearances of due process: he received notice of the charges against him; he had a jury trial presided over by an apparently unbiased judge; he was represented by able counsel; he had adequate time to prepare for trial; to a limited extent, he was given notice of the evidence against him, allowed to present evidence in his own defense, and permitted some cross-examination of the witnesses who testified against him; a written record was made of the proceeding; and the basis of the decision against him was made known.

If that’s all that were required, we could put this case behind us and move on, but the full story of the persecution (it was not just a prosecution) of Manning requires a more complete look at what the government did to him.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison for leaking to WikiLeaks more than 700,000 classified files from the U.S. State Department, diplomatic cables, powerpoint presentations, lists of military addresses, military databases, videos of military actions, documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other similar materials.

No one disputes that Manning leaked these materials. What is disputed is how he should be dealt with for what he believed was his duty to expose wrongdoing.

Manning was charged with violations of Army regulations: failure to obey a lawful order or regulation, aiding the enemy, knowingly giving intelligence to the enemy through indirect means, wrongfully storing classified information, and related infractions.

From the beginning of Manning’s case, however, the government engaged in misconduct. After he was arrested he endured 11 months of solitary confinement in conditions that the United Nations special rapporteur on torture considers, based on article 16 of the convention against torture, as cruel, inhuman, and degrading -- very near to torture:

The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence.

Had the special rapporteur been allowed private access to Manning as a part of his investigation, he would have been able to gauge whether Manning’s treatment amounted to torture. Officials at the Pentagon denied the special rapporteur private communications with Manning, thus thwarting a complete investigation into the conditions of his imprisonment, a violation of human rights procedures according to the UN.

Manning was forced to sleep naked facing a lamp, confined to a 6-by-8 foot cell for over 23-and-a-half hours a day, and denied contact with other inmates. When they found him asleep, guards woke him up. When he danced to overcome the boredom, guards considered that he was mentally unstable. Besides, dancing was not a form of exercise approved by his jailers.

Manning’s harsh treatment was justified by his guards as punishment for the most serious charge -- aiding the enemy -- though he had not been convicted of any crime at the time (and subsequently was found not guilty of aiding the enemy). His pretrial confinement conditions will be one issue taken up on appeal.

Another issue on appeal will be that Manning was denied his right to a speedy trial through a procedure in which an Army commander complied with a prosecution request several times to remove from consideration a period of time that would otherwise have counted toward the speedy trial clock. Such a procedure makes a complete mockery of the right to a speedy trial.

One of the most egregious violations of due process that I have ever heard in my over 35 years of practicing law was the changing of the charges against Manning after the government had rested its case. That is, after all evidence in the case had been presented and closed, the presiding military judge allowed the prosecution to change the charges of larceny to a different offense.

Notice of the charges against a defendant before the trial begins is essential to due process. Changing those charges after all evidence has closed clearly violates the notice requirement.

Some actions relating to witnesses and evidence prevented Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, from pursuing the defense that he had chosen. For example, before the defense was allowed to call a witness, the witness had to be approved by the prosecution. Important evidence that Manning’s attorney wanted to present was not allowed, on the specious ground that it would compromise national security, though the evidence for this is minimal at best.

Further, although Manning could have used the defense that he had a duty under the U.S. military code and international law to which the U.S. subscribes to expose war crimes, he was denied the right to present evidence of this duty by both the court and the prosecution.

Some evidence that could have aided Manning was kept from the defense because it was declared classified. Coombs believes that classification was used to inhibit Manning’s defense. It was the government’s prosecutor alone who decided what classified evidence was beneficial and what was not. Coombs has a security clearance, so he could have looked at the evidence and decided its usefulness to Manning’s defense. That is a decision for trial counsel, not the prosecution.

 In civilian courts, where the prosecution has evidence that could be useful to the defense, but the prosecution is not sure of its usefulness, it is presented to judges privately and they decide what should be given to the defense. Not so in Manning’s trial. On the charge of “aiding the enemy,” of which Manning was found not guilty, Coombs had this to say after the trial:

Well, I think that, for starters, you go with an offense of aiding the enemy, and that offense really is unprecedented. When you look at how that was used in the past and how the government tried to use it in this case, they had to go back to an 1800s case to even make an argument, a colorable argument, as to why you would go after somebody who gave information to a journalist and say that they aided the enemy. That is an unprecedented aspect of this case.

Not only there, but in every other charging decision that they made, they pushed the envelope of, and even strained, any realistic reading of what the law is. And yet, they seemed to not have a problem with that. It was almost a win-at-all-costs mentality. And I think that ultimately will be something on appeal that will get reviewed, and perhaps at that point Brad will get some relief, even on appeal.

The claim of harm caused by Manning’s public disclosures seemed the most important reason for prosecuting him, but whether the disclosures had done actual harm was impossible for the government to prove. Coombs characterized the government’s evidence of harm, presented during the sentencing phase of the trial, as “pure speculation.”

Normally, witnesses are not allowed to speculate, but the government could find no actual evidence of harm to national security, so it was left to present witnesses who could only speculate about possible harm in the future, not even likely harm, but maybe some potential for harm.

It should not be surprising that no harm could be found. According to The Arizona Republic, 5 million government employees and contractors are eligible to see all of the information Manning leaked. U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter believes that the government has far too many records classified -- that we are in a period of “classification inflation.”

As a result, average Americans cannot know what their government is doing in matters that, if publicized, would not harm national security, but would severely embarrass the government.

Such secretiveness prevents journalists from informing the public about matters that we should know if we are to be citizens capable of making informed and intelligent decisions about government policy and practice. Considering the government actions that we do know about, what is surprising to me is that there are not more leaks.

Preventing such leaks is, in part, what the Manning trial was all about -- an attempt to discourage whistleblowing by essentially ending the lives of those who dare to let the public know about the actions of its government and its abuse of its authority. The government wanted Manning sentenced to nearly double the 35 years in prison he received -- a sentence that could have kept him in prison for the rest of his life.

Another troubling aspect of Manning’s trial, directly related to secrecy, was that some of it was closed to the public (and none of it was allowed to be broadcast so the public could see first-hand what the government was doing). Coombs believes that the government used closed sessions to convince the public that some information released by Manning was harmful. Otherwise, there would be no reason for closed sessions.

Coombs and many other observers believe that the government was embarrassed by the content of some of the leaks, as well as by the massive amount of leaks. Especially with regard to the diplomatic cables that became public, Coombs believes that having the truth come out was extremely embarrassing:

I think the damage there was an embarrassment of having other people see that we don’t always do the right thing for the right reasons as the United States, which might come as a surprise to some people. You would think that when we deal with other countries, when we deal with people who are less fortunate than our country, that we’re doing so in a way that helps everybody, that’s in everyone’s best interest.

But that’s not always the case. And, in fact, frequently we do things that are in our own national interests, and sometimes that is to the detriment of people who are struggling to have what we have here in America -- a democracy, a free and open press. And that’s a little disheartening when you see that. And I think that’s probably the biggest damage, because if people actually look to these documents, they will see that we don’t always do what we should do, and we are not always the country that we should strive to be.

Perhaps the most embarrassing leak (released by WikiLeaks), and certainly one of the most damaging to America’s image in the world, was the 2007 video of airstrikes in Baghdad by two Apache helicopter crews that killed a Reuters cameraman and his assistant, along with nine Iraqis, two of whom may have had weapons.

The attack was approved by the crews’ commander via radio communication at the crews’ urging. Not content with the killing and maiming they had just done, at least one of the Apache helicopter crews opened fire just minutes later on a van  that was trying to rescue the wounded. The van was occupied by a family that included two children who were both wounded.

No evidence has surfaced that any of the dead were insurgents. Their behavior did not indicate any activity that would have been considered threatening to nearby U.S. troops. It is not clear whether WikiLeaks obtained the footage from Manning first, or had obtained it before Manning released the material.

Regardless of where the Baghdad airstrike footage originated, what seems clear today is that Manning is, as Coombs described him, “a good young man who did what he thought was morally right, and for the right reasons, and he was sentenced the way we would sentence somebody who committed murder, the way we would sentence somebody who molested a child.”

It is a failure of the justice system, both military and civilian, that the callous, unjustified killing of innocent Iraqis, including children and journalists, has not been redressed, but Pfc. Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in a military prison for embarrassing the government in a trial that grossly violated the constitutional guarantee of due process and was nothing short of tyrannical.

This is a time when all patriotic Americans should be questioning the ability of their government to follow the values that are the foundation of our country. Manning should be at least as free as those who carried out the 2007 massacre in Baghdad.

NOTE: Quotes from David Coombs are from an interview he gave to independent journalist Alexa O’Brien just after the Manning trial ended. To join an effort to free Manning, go here.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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HISTORY / Bob Feldman : A People's History of Egypt, Part 8, 1922-1923

Sultan Ahmad Fuad became King Faud I in 1922. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

A people's history:
The movement to democratize Egypt

Part 8: 1922-1923 period -- Socialist and labor activism flourish despite foreign-dominated monarchy.

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2013

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman's Rag Blog "people's history" series, "The Movement to Democratize Egypt," could not be more timely. Also see Feldman's "Hidden History of Texas" series on The Rag Blog.]

In 1922 “the British decided unilaterally...to allow Egypt formal independence...because of the realistic possibility that the 1919 Revolution could recur,” according to Selma Botman’s Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

Yet despite obtaining its formal independence from the UK on February 28, 1922, “Egypt of the pre-Nasser period was dominated by foreigners: the British controlled the upper levels of the military and the government, and people of various European nationalities owned and operated the banks, hotels, textile factories, and insurance companies,” according to the same book.

Although the UK-selected Sultan Ahmad Fuad was now officially the king of a formally independent Egyptian monarchical government in March 1922, the UK government still “retained the right to maintain the security of British imperial communications through Egypt (i.e., the Suez Canal),” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt; and during the next few decades “more than once Royal Navy warships appeared before the palace windows in Alexandria when the British wanted a controversial decision to go their way...”

A "strong British military presence remained in Egypt, not only in the canal zone but also in Alexandria and in Cairo, where the British army barracks stood in the middle of town on the site now occupied by the Nile Hilton Hotel,” and “a British high commissioner...was quite willing to intervene,” according to the same book.

Despite the monarchical government’s censorship policy, during the next few years “between 15,000 and 20,000 workers” in Egypt “were influenced by” the anti-imperialist Egyptian Socialist Party’s labor activism, according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

Party activists mobilized workers, organized meetings, and recruited new members in the Alexandria and al-Mahulah al industrial districts of Egypt; and one of the Egyptian Socialist Party’s founders, Joseph Rosenthal, organized 3,000 Egyptian workers to become members of the General Union of Workers (Itihad al-Naqabot al-‘Am) before being expelled from the Egyptian Socialist Party in December 1922 for opposing the party’s decision to accept the Comintern’s requirements for being affiliated to the Comintern.

Between August 1921 and April 1922, Egyptian workers in 50 different Egyptian workplaces were mobilized to fight for improved labor conditions in 91 separate strike actions. Tram workers in Alexandria went on strike for 42 days, Cairo’s tram workers went on strike for 102 days, and workers at the Shell Oil Refinery in Egypt went on strike for 113 days.

By late 1922, the Egyptian Socialist Party had recruited around 400 members in its Alexandria branch and about 1,100 members in its branches in other Egyptian cities; and the General Union of Workers -- that Egyptian Socialist Party members led -- now had about 20,000 members.

After affiliating with the Third International’s Comintern, the Egyptian Socialist Party then changed its name to the Egyptian Communist Party; and, led by a Central Committee which Hosni al-‘Arabi’ chaired, adopted the following program for the democratization of Egyptian society in its January 1923 meeting:

1. nationalization of the Suez Canal;
2. the liberation and unification of Egypt and the Sudan;
3. the repudiation of all Egyptian state debts and foreign capitulation agreements;
4. an 8-hour workday;
5. equal pay for Egyptian and foreign workers in Egypt;
6. abolition of land tenancy agreements in which Egyptian peasants had to pay 50 percent of the crop on rented land to large landowners;
7. the cancellation of the debts of all Egyptian peasants who owned less than 10 feddans of land; and
8. the restriction of landownership by individual landlords in Egypt to no more than 100 feddans.

To prevent the development of an anti-imperialist leftist movement of workers and intellectuals in Egypt during the early 1920s, however, a "special bureau” had been established by the UK-backed Egyptian Ministry of the Interior in 1921 “to monitor the activities” of the Egyptian Socialist Party; and “in their opposition to socialist activists the British found allies within the Egyptian bourgeoisie and religious circles,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988.

In addition, a Constitution for Egypt, “written by Egyptian legal experts who were sympathetic to the king and the British,” was also decreed on April 19, 1923, which set up an Egyptian Senate and Chamber of Deputies -- with members elected only by Egyptian men, “except for the two-fifths of the Senate who were appointed by the king” of Egypt, according to Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952.

This same Egyptian Constitution of 1923 also “gave excessive power to the monarch, who was granted authority to dismiss cabinets, dissolve parliament and appoint and unseat prime ministers,” according to the same book.

And besides holding excessive political power under the April 1923 Egyptian Constitution, “the royal family of Egyptian King Fuad also “owned about one-tenth of the arable land in Egypt” in 1923, according to A History of Egypt. Yet, according to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Egyptian monarchical government’s minister of finance and communications in 1923, Joseph Cattaui, was of Jewish religious background.

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

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Alan Waldman: ‘Flight of the Conchords’ is Brilliantly Original Kiwi Musical Sitcom

Waldman's film and TV
treasures you may have missed:

'Conchords' features inspired comedy and music parodies from gifted New Zealand folk-rock duo Jemaine Clement and Oscar winner Bret McKenzie.

By Alan Waldman / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2013

[In his weekly column, Alan Waldman reviews some of his favorite films and TV series that readers may have missed, including TV dramas, mysteries, and comedies from Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Most are available on DVD and/or Netflix, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Flight of the Conchords, available on DVD and Netflix and still airing on HBO, is one of the funniest, most original sitcoms ever. I didn’t find any complete episodes on YouTube, but here are their remarkable song spoofs from the first season.

Conchords, set in New York City, follows the comic adventures and travails of a New Zealand folk rock duo (real-life musician-singers Jemaine Clements and Bret McKenzie) who struggle to get good performing gigs, because of the incompetence of their manager, Murray (Rhys Darby). Another very funny character is their deranged only fan (and stalker), Mel, brilliantly played by The Daily Show comic Kristen Schaal.

From 2007 to 2009, 22 episodes aired on HBO. Flight of the Conchords earned 10 Emmy nominations, one win, and 10 other major noms. Emmy noms included Best Comedy Series, directing, writing (twice), best original music and lyrics (thrice) and lead actor (Clement). The pair also won a “Best Comedy Album" Grammy.

The show originated as a successful improvised 2005 BBC 2 radio series with the same name, which won them the Bronze Sony Radio Academy Award for comedy. McKenzie was music supervisor for the 2011 Muppets movie and won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "Man or Muppet."

Kristen Schaal as Mel.

The show is totally written by Clement, McKenzie, and their director, James Bobin. Murray, their hapless manager, has a day job is as Deputy Cultural Attaché at the New Zealand Consulate in Manhattan. Jemaine and Bret unsuccessfully pursue hot women, while fending off the advances of their married goofy groupie/stalker Mel. Their antagonists are often Australians. One of Jemaine’s pickup lines is: “You're so beautiful, like a tree or a high-class prostitute.”

In each episode, Jemaine or Bret breaks into song, which is built into the narrative structure of the show in different ways. Typically, at least once per show, a song is shot in the form of a music video. These song parodies are in many music styles, featuring animation, special effects and great comedy. Titles include Frodo (Don’t Wear the Ring), You Don’t Have to Be a Prostitute, Fashion Danger, and Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor.

The show had a positive critical reaction. The Guardian of London called it, “the best new sitcom to emerge for YEARS.” The San Francisco Chronicle reviewer raved, “It may well be the funniest thing you’ve seen in ages.” And the Detroit Free Press scribe described it as “TV’s most original and irresistible new comic concoction.”

A Flight of the Conchords movie may be in the works.

[Oregon writer and Houston native Alan Waldman holds a B.A. in theater arts from Brandeis University and has worked as an editor at The Hollywood Reporter and Honolulu magazine. Read more of Alan Waldman's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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